Venezuela's Maduro warns Colombia to respect territory

By Laura Gamba

BOGOTA, Colombia (AA) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered the Armed Forces to clean the "barrels of the rifles," after Colombia announced an elite command to combat insurgent groups, which, according to President Ivan Duque, take refuge in Venezuela.

Maduro said Wednesday that the Colombian government would be planning to use the alleged presence of illegal groups in Venezuelan territory to make an attempt on his life.

"I have told the National Armed Forces to answer forcefully the reckless statements made by Ivan Duque about Venezuela, to answer them in words and to clean the barrels of the rifles to answer him," Maduro said at a press conference.

“We have to answer him if he dares to violate the sovereignty of Venezuela, if he dares to touch a millimeter of Venezuelan territory," he added.

Duque had announced the creation of a special elite command to combat dissident FARC guerrillas, ELN rebels and drug traffickers who, according to the government, have found shelter in the neighboring country.

"Clearly in Venezuela many of them are protected because the Cartel of the Suns is on Maduro's side, they are doing drug trafficking operations," Duque said early February.

The Cartel of the Suns, in Spanish Cartel de los Soles, is an alleged Venezuelan organization supposedly headed by high-ranking government officials who are involved in drug trade.

According to Colombian military authorities, there are some 1,400 members of Colombian armed groups in Venezuela who move on both sides of the 2,200 kilometer border.

In early February, Colombian magazine Semana published photos showing armed FARC dissident leaders allegedly in Venezuelan territory.

"Wherever criminals are, justice must come," Duque warned.

Maduro said that during the years he considers the armed conflict in Colombia to have lasted, guerrilla groups of Colombia have swarmed through the region "abandoned by the Colombian State".

"You go to the Colombian side and there are no authorities, no police, no military, there is nothing, they have given the border for a long time to the mafias,” he said. "Also on that border is what is left of the Colombian guerrilla, the remains of the Colombian guerrilla."

Duque did not say he would launch an operation in Venezuelan territory.

In 2008 Colombia’s security forces killed a senior commander of the FARC guerrilla group along the southern border with Ecuador, which sparked a serious diplomatic crisis with Quito.